The purpose of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of a newly developed measure of social cognition designed especially for the preschool and kindergarten years. The measure-the Social Information Processing Interview - Preschool version (SIPI-P)-is based on the conceptual work of Dodge and his colleagues on social information processing and is a modified and adjusted preschool version of the SIP Interview first introduced by Dodge and colleagues. It is designed to address the critical gap in the SIP literature regarding the preschool years and to answer the call in the developmental community for measures of social competence appropriate to use on large and diverse populations of children. We will examine whether (a) risk factors for early conduct disorder are related: to social information processing in preschool and kindergarten, (b) social information processing is related to social behavior in preschool and : kindergarten; (c) social information processing changes from preschool to kindergarten, and (d) social information processing mediates associations between risk factors for conduct disorder and social behavior. In the SIPI-P, children are asked to respond to different types of social situations in which a protagonist is either rebuffed or provoked by peers. Children are asked to interpret peers' intentions, to generate a response, and to evaluate the outcomes of the generated response. The,variables derived from the interview are related to children's attention to the story, the presence of a hostile attribution bias, children's level of aggressiveness and competence in generating the response, and their evaluation of the outcome of the response. Data collected in the interview will be validated through the examination of links with social behavior ratings completed by children's parents and teachers. This research is relevant to the promotion of public health because the investigation of the cognitive processes that facilitate social behavior in childhood could be very useful in the efforts to prevent children's maladaptive behavior. The social information processing model describes specific processes that can be taught to children through intervention. Administration of the SIPI-P to preschool children means that interventions can be implemented earlier than in most previous efforts, when maladaptive behaviors are less likely to be ingrained. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]